


Nothing Gold Can Stay

by SonnetCXVI



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 18:07:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8855668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonnetCXVI/pseuds/SonnetCXVI
Summary: Delphine ponders photographs of Shay and Cosima.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Cosima's nautilus tattoo represents the Golden Ratio, a pattern that is found throughout nature. If not hindered by physical constraints, the pattern repeats endlessly and is often expressed as a spiral. 
> 
> Thanks to OKImafan, who improved this.

There are surveillance photos and video of everything. Delphine knows this now that she has taken Aldous’s chair at Dyad. She had known all along that photographs were being produced to document personal contacts and changes to each clone’s appearance and habits. She had also suspected that Dyad used facial recognition software and image enhancement to sift through surveillance information for possible subject interaction with other Leda clones. Now she knows that this is, in fact, a major component of the monitoring system; what is completely new to her, though, is that this program has always included a special emphasis on possible contact with members of Castor, the existence of whom she has only recently become aware of.

She has also discovered that much, much more has been recorded. There are rooms and rooms of reports, photographs, and video of the clones, as well as boxes of personal artifacts. Much is digitized, but most information that was gathered in the early days remains in hard copy. There is, in fact, a whole department whose job it is to ensure that materials such as transcribed monitor contact reports, school records, credit and spending reports, voting records, and gym records are maintained properly and carefully. Within that department is a specialized arm that digitizes and maintains reports and associated records (such as x-rays) of all medical and psychological information on the clones. In Cosima’s case, the files in both sections are nearly twice as large as those of most of the other clones. This abundance of material is partly due to her manifestation of the clone disease and partly due to her proximity to DYAD, but Delphine suspects that there is another reason as well. She suspects that Aldous had requested extra surveillance because Cosima was sleeping with her.

Delphine has always been comfortable in her sexuality. Perhaps it is because she is so beautiful. Beautiful women, particularly women as smart as Delphine, have little to be insecure about in their sexual relationships. Men have always fallen over themselves to get into her bed. In fact, she’s always had her pick. But Delphine is ambitious and focused enough that she’s never allowed sex to interfere with her goals or derail her momentum. She’s always slept with men she’s liked or who were physically attractive, but she’s stayed away from men for whom she might develop deeper feelings. Aldous is another story. That choice wasn’t about friendship or physical attraction. That choice was about access.

Sitting at her desk mulling over her discovery of the depth of DYAD’s surveillance of Cosima, Delphine considers the consequences of her dalliance with Aldous. On the one hand, he had treated her as an intellectual equal almost from the start of her employment. Cosima had been close to the mark when she had suggested over dinner that Delphine might find Aldous’s mind sexy. She had only misread the flow of influence. In fact, Delphine knows that Aldous had thought _her_ mind to be sexy and had reacted to this as the primary erotic impulse behind his desire to bed her. Once he had seduced her, he quickly discovered that she was his intellectual equal and began to discuss with her his thoughts and plans for Neolution and the future of body modification. That had been a nice benefit.

On the other hand, thinks Delphine, there is now this: dozens of hours of secretly photographed video of her making love with Cosima, as well as written summations of each sexual encounter, containing date and time of contact, duration, sexual positions, number of orgasms, and a transcript of their pillow talk. Filed as part of the documentation of each encounter is also a psychiatric evaluation of Cosima’s apparent state of mind during the encounter and recommendations concerning whether to terminate or allow the relationship between Cosima and her once-monitor to continue.

All of this “data,” thinks Delphine, is a cover. Aldous knew that she quit his bed because she was in love with Cosima, and he’d ordered the extra surveillance, not because it was necessary or even useful to the clone project, but because he had wanted her to feel the sting when she eventually discovered it. Her colleagues have had a ring-side seat all along to the most intimate details of her love affair and sexual relationship with Cosima, as has Rachel. Of course she is stung. She is shaken.

Delphine pours herself a scotch and considers the file before her. It is the latest volume on 324b21, brought up at her request an hour ago. She has not requested the videos of Cosima and Shay. Although she would secretly like to view them out of jealous curiosity, she denies herself because she fears that seeing Cosima touch another woman will upset her enough to muddle her thinking, and that is unacceptable. She has endured this whole wretched separation and its resulting pain so that she can focus the Dyad labs on a cure for the clone disease and so that she can exert influence on Dyad’s priorities without the perception that she is catering to Cosima. It would be foolish to sabotage that now.

Rachel knew when she dangled this opportunity to oversee Dyad that Delphine would be unable to refuse it and she is sure that Rachel had anticipated months of pleasure watching the lovers suffer. Anyway, it’s done now. She has swallowed the poisoned carrot and now she must outmaneuver the stick. She must maintain her position of influence or all the heartbreak will have been for nothing. That means keeping a grip on her emotions so she can make the correct choices as she navigates the shifting tectonic power plates and tenuous allegiances taking place all around her. She has to be sharp and wary, because she knows that should she make a mistake, it’s entirely possible she’ll be disappeared on one of Dyad’s private jets or in the bathtub at her apartment, and where will Cosima be then?

Delphine has already ordered that all recording and extra surveillance of Cosima be suspended, but there is still plenty of old footage in Dyad’s archives. She doesn’t think she can have it removed without raising suspicion; she’s pretty sure that Rachel watches it periodically. She decides, instead, to have it reclassified so that only the very top levels of management can view it. This is all she can think to do at the moment. The written transcripts of Cosima’s sexual encounters will also be problematic due to the way they are logged, but she will begin removing these bit by bit anyway. It is less likely that the transcripts will be as carefully controlled as the videos, especially the older ones, as they are nested with other documents and are, therefore, less prominent. She will have to consider what Cosima would find the most intrusive and remove those as soon as it is safe to do so. Expressions of love and more extreme sexual practices first, plain sex later.

She can tell by the color of the folder that they have brought her Cosima’s personal file instead of her medical file; she buzzes her assistant and requests that the correct folder be brought up. In the meantime, she flips open what is in front of her. On top is the record of a trip to a restaurant with Shay dated eight days ago. Cosima ordered cioppino and Shay ordered halibut and spinach. They had a bottle of moderately priced wine and paid in cash, tipping 21 percent. Then they took a cab home.

She pauses. She knows that the next document down will surely be a report of Cosima and Shay having sex. After a moment, she flips to it.

 

Report of Sexual Contact 130229Z May 15

> 324b21 and Shay Davydov entered Davydov’s apartment at 9:21 p.m. local. Placed leftover food in the refrigerator and entered bedroom.
> 
> Consensual sex lasting 1 h 52 minutes.
> 
> 324b21 performed cunnilingus x 2: 14 minutes and 9 minutes; manual stimulation (clitoral) 8 minutes; penetration using dildo (condom) 22 minutes; anal penetration (condom) 12 minutes.
> 
> Davydov: 3 orgasms
> 
> Davydov masturbated 4 minutes; cunnilingus 8 minutes; manual stimulation (vaginal) 12 minutes; clitoral stimulation with vibrator 6 minutes. 
> 
> 324b21: 2 orgasms.
> 
> 324b21: one productive coughing fit lasting 6 minutes beginning at 1 h 4 m; sexual activity resumed.
> 
> Total elapsed time 1 hr 52 m: 95 m sexual intercourse; 6 m pause; 11 m conversation. Both subjects asleep at 11:55 p.m. local
> 
> Psych summary: Normal sexual response and affect. Good rebound from coughing. Appears to be an affectionate relationship with appropriate emotional support from both. 324b21: no mention of previous lover or of Dyad. Recommendation: no change _M. Guileg_ , MD
> 
> Report 983156 filed 140320Z May 15
> 
> Video record 983156v filed 140720Z May 15
> 
> Transcript 983156vt filed 151447Z May 15

 

Delphine sits staring at the report and takes another sip of her drink. She doesn’t know what she thought she would see when she looked at it. She has known for some time that Cosima has been sleeping with Shay. She has put up as brave a front as she can. But still. There it is in black and white, a description of Cosima’s activities with another lover. Despite the antiseptic format, Delphine knows what this report is detailing. She has done these things herself. She knows exactly how it is to make love to Cosima. She has muscle memory from touching her so often.

She has been a fool to look at this.

She leans forward and puts her face in her hands. How has she gotten to this place? She has fallen deeply in love with the only person she can even contemplate staying with and has chosen, out of altruism, to give her up. What kind of unbelievable scenario is this? Delphine the rising star, perched precariously at the top of Dyad, trying to protect her bohemian lover and reading reports about how often and in what ways she has sex with another woman. Jesus, she thinks. I’ve got to get a grip. Close the folder. Think what to do.

But she doesn’t. She leans back and flips past the transcript of Cosima and Shay’s pillow talk to the next documents. There are several photographs of Cosima with Shay. They are mostly baseline photos, taken to document initial contact, locations, and general movement. But there is one that catches her eye. Cosima is reaching across a table to hand Shay a salt shaker. Exposed on her arm is the shell tattoo. Delphine is suddenly in tears.

_Oh, Cosima_ , she thinks. _How I miss you. How shall I protect you? How can I survive without you?_

She picks up the photo and looks more carefully at Cosima’s outstretched arm. So much in her own life has become a reflection of this symbol, she thinks. And she has only just recently realized it. She has been so caught in what it means to have lost Cosima that she has overlooked something more important. It has taken this separation for her to truly understand the truth of what their relationship is. She wishes she could tell Cosima what she has discovered. She wishes that she had been able to say, when Cosima was in her arms, what she now knows, instead of the sincere but inadequate _je t’aime_ s that she had actually spoken.

_Cosima_ , she thinks, closing the file. _Even if we are apart, the pattern of you and me will always repeat. Everything that comes after this will always be only the sum of us, added together over and over, no matter where we are. The beautiful expression of your body -- the ridges on the roof of your mouth, the way you divide and twist your hair, the textures inside you that I have touched with my fingers -- these are now the expression of me. They will fold inward and repeat in me forever. I do not have to touch you to honor this design. I do not have to see you to know the spiral continues. My love for you will double and double and double. This is the golden ratio of us._

She sighs and turns her chair to the window. She can no longer say these things to Cosima. She can only live in their truth.

She hears her assistant place Cosima’s medical file on her desk. “Thank you,” she says quietly.

In the morning, she thinks, she will begin to delete the transcripts. She will be smart and brave. She will figure out a way to save Cosima. But not tonight. Tonight she will sit in her chair and watch the lights of Toronto blink and waver and eventually, go out.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay."


End file.
